Blue Skies - Rythm on the river

They Say...

Review by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

On this unlicensed release, the Great Movie Themes label excerpts the musical passages from two movies of the 1940s starring Bing Crosby: Blue Skies (1946), a buddy picture with Fred Astaire, and Rhythm on the River (1946), in which he is paired romantically with Mary Martin. Blue Skies was one of songwriter Irving Berlin's anthology movies in which he induced a film studio to reuse a batch of his old hits, such as "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody," "Puttin' on the Ritz," and the title song. He also wrote four new ones: "A Serenade to an Old-Fashioned Girl" (sung here by Betty Finch, dubbing actress Joan Caulfield); "A Couple of Song and Dance Men," a duet for Crosby and Astaire; "You Keep Coming Back Like a Song"; and "Getting Nowhere." Sometimes the material was noticeably dated. ("I'll See You in C-U-B-A" was written during Prohibition and refers to it as the reason to head for the island.) Sometimes it became apparent that censorship was tougher in 1940s Hollywood than it had been in the '30s on Broadway. (In "Heat Wave," the line "She started a heat wave by letting her seat wave" had the word "feet" nonsensically substituted for the offending "seat.") But on the whole, the film, and thus the first two-thirds of this disc, made for a good compilation of Berlin songs, well sung. Rhythm on the River (tracks 17-24) employed Crosby's usual songwriters, Johnny Burke and James V. Monaco. They gave him a winning ballad, "Only Forever," as well as providing an excellent rhythm song for Martin, "Ain't It a Shame About Mame." Also memorable was "That's for Me." Crosby fans will note that Crosby never made a studio recording of "What Would Shakespeare Have Said," so this is the only chance to hear it on disc. The monophonic sound is good and clear, no doubt taken directly from the soundtracks to the films.